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DISNEY-PIXAR’s “COCO” on Its Box Office Premiere Beats Out “JUSTICE LEAGUE” on Its Week 2

Its setting may have been Mexico during the Dia de Muertos celebration of October 31-November 2, but on its US box office opening the day before Thanksgiving, the Disney-Pixar animated feature film “Coco” has, true to form with its cinematic brethren, done nothing less than impress. Both moviegoers and critics are unanimous in just how much they enjoy and recommend watching the musical-fantasy extravaganza, the story empowered as it is with top-notch Pixar animation and trademark Disney musical score and song numbers. There’s no surprise then, that on its first weekend in theaters alone, it has already bounded ahead of “Justice League,” the DC superhero team film from rival studio Warner Bros. Pictures.

As Entertainment Weekly tells it, from the US premiere date of “Coco” on November 22, and the following four days, the latest Disney-Pixar movie’s take is already up to $71.2 million all across 3,987 movie-houses from both stateside and Canada. Of that, a solid $49 million alone was earned in the weekend period of November 25-26. Without adjustments for inflation, that makes “Coco” the fourth-highest Thanksgiving film opening of all time. What’s more, this maintains that the top four of those openings are all solid Disney or Disney-Pixar productions.

“Coco” is a heartwarming and mystical story about Miguel Rivera, a twelve-year-old fan-boy of Mexican singer-film actor Ernesto de la Cruz who wants to follow in the late star’s footsteps. His greatest opposition however is his own music-hating family, whose ban on the medium began when Miguel’s great-great-grandmother reacted badly to being abandoned by her musician husband for his career, leaving her and her daughter Coco – Miguel’s great-grandmother – to fend for themselves by shoemaking.

On Dia de Muertos, Miguel discovers a clue insinuating that his great-great-grandfather may be Ernesto de la Cruz himself. One thing leads to another and Miguel finds himself in the Land of the Dead, where the skeletal spirits of his dead relatives reside. With the help of an unusual street dog and a forgotten skeleton named Hector, Miguel must discover the truth behind his family history to find a way to return to the Living World and pursue his musical dream.

In comparison to “Coco” and its box office take, the earnings of Warner-DC’s “Justice League” for the week amount to $63 million over the same period, with only $40.7 million from Saturday to Sunday. It’s already 57% less than its take from its first week which started in November 17, indicating hard going for what should’ve been to the DC Extended Universe what “The Avengers” was in 2012 to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

While “Coco” only premiered in the US last week, it has already been running in Mexico since October 20, well before the 2017 Dia de Muertos celebration. It’s now the all-time highest-grossing film, domestic or foreign, in that country.